The RIAA may have given up on trying to outlaw DVRs, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to interfere with your legal right to record content and when it comes to recording radio, they’ve drawn a line in the sand. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of innovative radio DVR gadgets hit the market, only to be squashed by the goons at the RIAA squad. What’s made the RIAA’s strategy even more boneheaded than usual, has been their insistence on trying to keep this technology out of the hands of their paying customers.
Whether its their ridiculous lawsuit against XM Satellite radio or Creative’s decision to remove FM recording from their MP3 products, there are plenty of examples where the RIAA has used heavy handed tactics to try and stifle innovation.
Yet, no matter how hard they try, they can’t put this genii back into the bottle and by taking such a strong stance against legitimate companies, they’ve driven DVR radio underground, where they’ve now lost all control over it.
The RIAA may have been worried about RadioShark, but it was the radio piranhas that were the real threat and while they were busy suing their partners, the open source movement has been filling the stream ripping wake, that corporations are now too afraid to touch.
Stream ripping software isn’t new, but the functionality has been relatively limited and the interface hasn’t been ready for the average user. Screamer Radio is an excellent open source solution for DVR radio, but it lacks the aesthetic appeal and scheduling features, that make traditional DVRs so easy to use.
Luckily, the open source community has been hard at work and what Screamer Radio leaves out, Raima Radio is now bringing to the table. Raima Radio is a powerful freeware program that fuses features like wishlists, program scheduling, and video support with the traditional features of most stream ripping programs.
This combination turns a tremendous amount of power over to the consumer and will certainly have the RIAA taking extra heartburn medication (when they find out about it 
) If they didn’t like XM’s limited subscriber base, having the ability to record satellite radio, then they will hate this program. It gives anyone with a computer and an internet connection, the ability to time shift radio to an mp3 player.
Raima supports a large number of internet radio stations and includes links to web pages, where you can find even more mainstream programs. If you are midway through a program, you can hit record and it caches the data, so that you can get all of the program. For years I’ve wanted to tune into Kevin and Bean’s morning show on KROQ, but since I live in San Francisco, I haven’t had easy access to the program. Now I can use Raima’s program to start recording, before I even wake up. By bridging the gap between the internet and the mp3, Raima allows you to follow radio that would normally be out of geographic reach.
Even more powerful then the scheduling capabilities, is the ability for Raima to monitor and record specific songs or artists that you are interested in. Instead of illegally downloading songs from the P2P networks, Raima allows you to create wishlists and will scan for those songs on any station that you tune into. The number of streams that you can simultaneously record is only limited by your bandwidth. This allows you to set up filters, record 10 different stations overnight and in the morning you’ll have a hefty mp3 collection.
This is the functionality that has the RIAA so terrified. If consumers are able to easily record the songs that they hear off the radio, it reduces their need to buy the hit singles. As someone who prefers albums over singles, I think that this is the wrong way to look at it, but I can still understand why they would see this as a threat to their business model. If you get me hooked on a few of your best songs, I’m going to buy your albums, go to your concerts and tell my friends about you, but if you are a casual music listener, this software will enable you to avoid ever having to purchase music again.
While the radio capabilities are Raima’s strongest suit, they’ve also thrown in support for recording streaming video. There isn’t a large selection of channels and the quality is terrible, but its a nice bonus over some of the other stream ripping programs. I would like to see them add support for recording internet video into XviD, but portability is more important for music, than it is for video.
The biggest drawback to Raima’s software is that the quality of the sound files isn’t always the best. The songs usually start recording ten seconds early and cut off before they finish. Unlike TiVo, there is no way to tell the system to start recording earlier or later to account for the lag. The mp3 streams also tend to include commentary from the DJs and sponsors. This isn’t a big deal if you’re trying to listen to a half an hour of talk radio, but it can be annoying, if you are only focused on the music. The quality of the mp3′s is also dependent on your internet connection. If you are trying to record a stream from Japan, while watching YouTube, running Bit Torrent, and playing online poker, then expect stuttering and interference to show up in your recordings. If you have a dedicated connection to a local radio station, then you should be fine.
While these deficiencies aren’t a major drawback, they still help to differentiate time shifted radio from buying the actual music. As great as Raima Radio is, it still can’t replicate the selection or quality that you can get from visiting Amoeba or buying .mp3′s online.
Another drawback to the software is that you can’t tell if a station is broadcasting until you try to tune into it. Because Raima includes a lot of dead streams, it means that you have to spend a lot of time trying to load dead air.
Overall, Raima Radio is a great freeware program and one that is pushing the envelope for time shifted radio. While there is plenty of room for improvement, its one of the better stream ripping programs out there. Universal may be relishing the royalties that they extracted from XM, but in the end, they paid a fair steeper price by trying to squash innovation.
#1 by bean on December 19, 2007 - 10:07 am
thanks for the kevin and bean shout out! and for the raima tip. i’ll check it out for sure…..
#2 by Bryan Villarin on December 19, 2007 - 4:25 pm
Sweet, I think I’ll try Raima Radio.
@Bean — Is that really you?!
#3 by Davis on December 19, 2007 - 5:06 pm
Thanks Bean – I can’t tell you how great it is being able to tune into your show again. It’s something that I’ve been trying to figure out how to do for a long time. You and Kevin are two of the funniest comedians out there and even though its been 10 years since I last tuned in, the show is still just as funny as it was a decade ago. I’d love to see you take your show to the national stage, but there is something special about all of the local jokes. Keep up the great work and thanks for commenting.
#4 by Bill Moore on December 20, 2007 - 6:42 am
Songs and radio are different media.
Recording individual songs to replace a music collection is stealing music, ethically and legally. Time-shifting a block of radio to listen later is legal. But radio is more than a playlist with DJs and people. Our company makes RedButton (Windows) and powers Radioshift (Mac), are both commercial products that compete with Raima. But neither are focused on ripping songs.
#5 by Peter Nelson on April 28, 2008 - 8:32 am
“Recording individual songs to replace a music collection is stealing music, ethically and legally. ”
I’ll leave the ethics up to the philosophers but it is definitely NOT illegal. I suggest that Bill Moore and any other interested parties familiarize themselves with United States Code Title 17, Chapter 10, Subchapter D -”Prohibition on Certain Infringement Actions, Remedies, and Arbitration” § 1008. “Prohibition on certain infringement actions”
Other provisions in copyright law require that artists receive fair compensation for for their work, but no one, not even the RIAA ,has suggested that the onus for this falls on the consumer who rips the streams. Instead, it has been a point of contention in negotiations involving SoundExchange, where the implication is that internet radio stations that do not implement anti-stream-ripping provisions may be forced to pay higher fees in order to compensate the artist.
As things stand now there are internet radio stations all over the world with high bitrate (256-320 kbps) MP3 streams with no cross-fading or talking over the songs that make themselves a stream-ripper’s paradise. It’s easy to see why the music industry is unhappy about this, but under current law individuals who rip streams from these stations to build their music collection do not appear to be violating any laws.
If Mr Moore feels that stream ripping is illegal perhaps he could cite the relevant portions of the law.